Find the cause and the cure will come

Finding a cure for any negative situation will be easy if one finds the cause.
I say this regularly regarding the war on cancer.
I rally for the cure, with the admonition that we really need to seek the cause.
This is more abundantly true in the case of the “opiate crisis.” In my newspaper this past week, I found an interesting booklet on painkillers.
The opiates involved in the growing addiction have been around since the beginning of recorded history and the pharmaceutical industry has been using those herbs, as well as creating synthetic substitutes, all with the aim in mind of relieving humankind’s ills.
A couple of the old novels I have read depicted women drinking opiates to ease their “vapors.” Fainting was common. Laudanum was common.
It’s hard to determine if the “vapors” existed before the “patent medicines” were ingested, or due to them.
Almost every home had a “fainting couch” ready for when the woman of the house or a guest suddenly became ill.
My grandmother had a little vial filled with ammonia in her purse in case someone fainted. The ammonia was to bring the sick person “to.”
I never saw anyone succumb to the “vapors,” so I don’t know if it worked or not.
Today, there is a drug for everything.
OxyContin has been called “Hillbilly heroin.” Son of a bear, where have I been? I thought it was the home brew distilled in the device behind the hay bales in the barn so the “revenuers” wouldn’t find it.
Now, we are told opiates have been a great cause of home entries and burglaries, with people stealing items that are sold for cash to buy more drugs.
This isn’t new. When I was young, there was an old man, a veteran of World War I, who went from one end of town to the other. He had no legs, but had created a board from the seat of a chair and roller skates. He had a cup on the seat and one in his hand, begging.
My dad asked him if he had been given money by the government for his war wounds and he said he had. “Then why panhandle?” my dad asked.
“I’m a morphiner.”
We might not realize it, but one of the fruits of war has long been addiction.
After morphine came codeine. Older veterans talk about “G.I. gin,” a drug included in the kit issued to each as he was shipped out.
I believe the drug manufacturers intend to create addiction, but that may be as specious as the belief that hormones create cancer.
We have thrown money at the “war on drugs” for years, with no victory in sight. If one pusher if taken off the street, another fills the void.
Why not look for the cause?
Looking for a cure has become a lucrative occupation for many. Why not get to the source and deal with it?
Find the cause and a cure may come with it.